From the outset, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has been controversial. This entry in the long-running series attracted praise for its mixture of pulp sci-fi, alternate history, and deadly serious subjects, like post-traumatic stress disorder and child soldiers. The Phantom Pain has also been overshadowed by its tumultuous development history, with series director Hideo Kojima eventually departing from Konami on bitter terms, and the game itself ends with a number of major plot points unresolved. For many, myself included, Metal Gear Solid V's last act makes the game feel incomplete.

However, I would argue that even if the incomplete nature of the V's story is incidental and due to developmental issues instead of artistic vision, that lack of closure fits the The Phantom Pain and ends up making it a fascinating meditation on revenge and trauma, and the relationship between the two.Note: I'm assuming anyone reading this is versed in Metal Gear lore and doesn't mind spoilers, just FYI.

So, this last week was the lightest I've ever seen. I am guessing that like me you were all getting married and on your honeymoon! But even though we don't have many blogs this week, they're still very good, and you all should read them.

Community Blogs For October 5 – October 11:

Have You Heard Of... Multi Month Edition! One month, one game. This is what McNutty891 provides in his blog this week. A lot of great games are featured, with a fresh perspective. Plus, any blog with Yakuza mentioned in it is fantastic. What a great series.

It's physically excruciating for me to play Crash Bandicoot. I love Crash Bandicoot. Am I a sadist? No. I have cerebral palsy, and I hate it.

The reality of cerebral palsy dominates the lives of thousands of gamers like me. It's a bit like being caged. Accessible video games can offer a key that opens that gate for a short time, but at the end of the day, the door swings shut, and we're back where we started. Sometimes the best way to escape from the cage is not with a key but with a battering ram, not with accessibility but with inaccessibility. I enjoy inaccessible games.

I enjoy games that are not designed for the disabled, such as old-school Mario, Punch Out, and, of course, Crash. I enjoy them for similar reasons that able-bodied players play Bloodborne and Dark Souls: the challenge. The difference is I’m not fighting Cortex or Bowser. I’m fighting cerebral palsy. Inaccessible games give me the opportunity to go toe-to toe-with my own physical limitations and contend with them until one of us breaks. It doesn’t matter if a game hurts my fingers, or if it takes me an hour to progress through a five-minute platforming sequence. I will not break. These experiences give me a challenge to conquer and allow me to feel like I’ve bested my own worst enemy.

Tango Gameworks' horror sequel The Evil Within 2 is releasing on an appropriately spooky day – Friday the 13th – but you don't have to wait until then to see how it all starts. We played through the game's opening chapter and you can check it out now.

In today's video, I'm joined by Andrew Reiner on the sticks, and Leo Vader in the control room. We get a look at Sebastien Castellanos' frayed mind, which is still in tatters after the loss of his family and a brush with the experimental (and sinister) STEM technology. You can see just how weird it gets in the video below.

With our new cover story on Dragon Ball FighterZ, we've shown a lot of new gameplay and focused a lot on the game's developer, Arc System Works. With this video interview, we wanted to zoom out and discuss the process of creating Dragon Ball games in general and what the future path looks like for publisher Bandai Namco. We spoke with producer Ryo Mito, who goes back to producing games like Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi, and Dragon Ball Xenoverse's producer Masayuki Hirano at Bandai Namco's headquarters in Tokyo.

Watch the interview below to learn how they choose the right development studio, genre, and vision to successfully carry the Dragon Ball license into the future.

Team Fortress 2 is now over a decade old, but it consistently ranks among Steam’s top 10 games in terms of active player count. This surely wouldn’t be possible without all the free updates Valve has released for the game. Since today marks the 10 year anniversary of the release, here are the seven best Team Fortress 2 updates over the game’s first decade, with insight from our interview with the lead designer about the transition to microtransactions and a free-to-play model.

The new trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi debuted last night during one of the worst football games I've ever forced myself to sit through. Turns out, I didn't have to do that at all – the trailer was released across the web at the exact moment it aired on ESPN's Monday Night Football. Take note of that for the future, everyone. There's no need to suffer through bad sportsball to get our Star Wars fix. Despite Mark Hamill and Rian Johnson telling us to avoid everything carrying the Star Wars name until The Last Jedi opens in theaters on December 14, the trailer was a knockout that didn't spoil too much. At the most we gained an understanding of what happened to Luke Skywalker. If anything, the footage raised more questions, particularly around what is happening to Kylo Ren and Rey. I love fan theories and speculation as much as anyone, and I have some crazy ideas as to what may be happening in this sequel. Below is a breakdown of the key moments I gleaned from this outstanding second look at The Last Jedi.

A Bandai Namco employee for more than 20 years, Katsuhiro Harada has served as a producer on Tekken since the series’ introductory release in 1994. From a development perspective, he does not have much to do with Dragon Ball FighterZ, but as the publisher’s premiere fighting game producer, he has been helping with promotion, while also offering feedback and advice as the game moves through development.

“Harada-san is, to me, the father of fighting games,” says Dragon Ball FighterZ producer Tomoko Hiroki, when asked about using him as a resource. “Among the various things he taught me, what really left an impression on me was how he emphasized to keep a good eye out on players playing the game, and to keep your channel of communication open with the players of the game.” He also taught Hiroki that wearing sunglasses will you make you look cool. “And that, too,” Hiroki jokes.

“I did receive a bit of advice here and there from him in regards to quality,” Hiroki says, “Harada-san offered advice as the creator of Tekken, and there was a lot he advised in relation to fighting games that left a strong impression with me.”

Long-awaited sequel Middle-Earth: Shadow Of War releases today, and we're celebrating with a livestream of us digging into how the Nemesis system has changed from the first title and hopefully showing off some intense battles. We'll be playing on a late-game but not-quite-end-game save and aiming to avoid story spoilers of any kind.

Tune in at 3 PM CT (three hours after this posting) to watch the Twitch stream below, or catch it over on YouTube!